Abstract P257: Taking Fresh Aim at Improving Blood Pressure Control

Nearly 70 million adults in the United States have hypertension, and only about 50% of those adults have a blood pressure reading below 140/90 mm Hg. Target: BP is a national initiative co-led by the American Heart Association and American Medical Association aimed at improving blood pressure control nationally to reduce the number of Americans who suffer the consequences of high blood pressure including myocardial infarctions, heart failure, strokes, and chronic kidney disease. Target: BP will equip physician practices and health care systems with the resources and technical assistance to achieve a minimum 70% blood pressure control rate with a target of reaching 80% or higher. Target: BP is a multi-faceted, evidence-based, data-driven quality improvement initiative that leverages the AMAs membership and strategic focus on improving health outcomes and the AHAs success in disseminating large scale improvement initiatives like Get With the Guidelines - Stroke, an effective cerebrovascular quality improvement and recognition program. This initiative offers participating healthcare systems, ambulatory clinical practices and individual clinicians the following: A mass communication campaign to raise public awareness about the importance of controlling high blood pressure A quality improvement program and relevant tools to help clinicians and care teams implement the latest hypertension guidelines and improve management and treatment of patients with hypertension, including check lists, treatment algorithms, protocols and fact sheets Opportunities to contribute data for tracking blood pressure control rates and benchmarking against other participants regionally and nationally Opportunities to be recognized formally for achieving a 70% blood pressure control rate, improving blood pressure control, reducing therapeutic inertia and using self-measured blood pressure monitoring Access to a national advisory group of experts in improving blood pressure control Since its initiation in November 2015, over 250 healthcare systems and clinics have committed to participate in Target: BP.